A retired boarding school teacher “orchestrated” the rape of a pupil by an older schoolboy, a court has heard. Derek Barker, 92, denies eight sexual offences against four boys at Monkton Combe School in Bath, Somerset, when he taught there in the 1970s and 1980s.
Bristol Crown Court heard live evidence from the first complainant in the case on Wednesday. The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told police in a video interview played to jurors on Tuesday that he had been told to attend Barker’s flat by another pupil. When he arrived, an older boy was present and told the complainant to take his trousers off so he could massage his leg, then removed his underwear, he said.
Complainant describes alleged abuse
“I was terrified by this time, I couldn’t believe what was happening, especially not with a teacher there,” the man told police. “I couldn’t, I didn’t understand why. I sound stupid really saying about that, but I didn’t comprehend it.”
“I was so surprised, so unexpected and so out of my depth and after a bit the boy took his clothes off and he proceeded to rape me. It hurt and I was frightened, I knew it was wrong but there was nothing I could do. I could see Mr Barker was enjoying himself. He was masturbating while he watched this.”
The man said Barker then told him to get dressed and go to his lessons, which he did. He told police the abuse was repeated on a number of occasions.
Charges and defence
Barker faces three charges of buggery, relating to him allegedly “aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring” the buggery of the complainant by the older boy – who died before police launched an investigation. The charge relates to the law at the time, which pre-dated the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Tabitha Macfarlane, defending Barker, said he denies being present during the incidents, and denies he masturbated or that he organised what happened.
The man told the court on Wednesday: “It took place in his flat in the school. I couldn’t have been there – it was a private flat – unless I had been invited and nor would [the older pupil] have been there unless he had been invited. How could these two boys have been in his flat if he hadn’t given an invitation? It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.”
Previous accounts and resignation
The man was asked about previous accounts he had given of the alleged abuse, in which he did not mention Barker. He said: “He wasn’t abusing me. He was present and he built the setting, made it possible, so I would say orchestrated it, but he didn’t do anything physically to me.”
“It would have been dishonest to say that he had. I don’t think it is right to suggest anything which isn’t true. He facilitated it by allowing it to happen in his private flat within the school, but it was not him that did anything to me.”
The man, who contacted police in 2022, told jurors he had wanted an apology from Barker but had not received one. “I didn’t want to go to the police, I didn’t want a court case like this, I didn’t want more trauma for me and no doubt anyone else who is involved,” he said. “I have lived with the effects all my life, I didn’t want to have salt rubbed into the wound. I just wanted acknowledgment.”
Barker resigned from the school in the 1980s, citing ill health, after he allegedly asked another pupil to tie him to a bed wearing just his underwear. Jurors were told the pupil took a photograph of Barker, which was developed in the school’s photographic lab and removed by another teacher.
Barker, from Somerset, denies three charges of buggery, three charges of indecency with a child and two charges of indecent assault. His trial, in front of Judge Euan Ambrose, continues.
